Jon writesEven though the railway is operationally closed, work still continues on many behind the scenes to keep the DEPG locomotives in tip-top condition. Jon and Warren deal with the class 14 engine mounting shock absorbers known as Cushyfeet. The old ones are completely stripped down into the component parts and allold grease, dirt, oil and glue is removed then all the surfaces are cleaned. The new rubber mountings (Cushyfeet) are glued into place with the components being reassembled and torqued down by Simon.Once the glue has cured, the entire assembly is painted with special enamel paint. When all the Cushyfeet have been similarly treated they will be refitted to the rebuilt engine which is still being worked on by Terry and Mike.

Many locomotive body and roof panels were being painted today, with Cameron dealing with the roof panels from the Hymek and Will dealing with the ones from the Crompton.Outside, the station is all very quiet and very cold-minus 2 degrees was recorded this morning!The wintery scenes show the lesser photted areas of the outside of the station buildings.The DEPG locomotives were captured in the brief spell of sunshine this afternoon.

Ian has provided an update on D6566. It was really too cold to work inside the loco for any lengthy period on Saturday, the water in a drip tray I had put underneath the turbo was still frozen in the afternoon!One problem that has been experienced with this and other Class 33s is that the Air Train Pipe will tend to build as the air system is charged. From the experience of other owners the likely cause of this is leakage through he AWS and/or DSD Exhaust Valves. So as the necessary O rings had arrived, I bravely entered the “cold box” and completed changing the seals in those valves. Once we can get air in the loco again we can confirm that this has solved the problem. Will has been painting the two panels from the inside of the cooler group brought into the warm shed for attention and is also similarly dealing with the engine barring point cover and the bracket that holds the high level air pipes and multiple jumper (if we had one!).

The loco has also suffered from brake block “flanging” whereby play in the brake hangers will cause a normal full width brake block to creep over the edge of the tyre as it wears down. This is often addressed by fitting narrow section brake blocks and that is how the loco arrived with us from the main line 20 years ago and has been perpetuated whenever the blocks have been changed. But as part of the current overhaul it has been the intention to sort this out so as full width blocks can be fitted. So in order to determine the extent of this, Will helped me put air into each bogie using an air line thus applying the brakes. Visually, one brake brake hanger on No.1 bogie is clearly faulty, angling out quite a bit when against the wheel. There is also quite a bit of play apparent when it is released. The rest all appeared to act squarely onto the wheel although one of the front ones on No.2 bogie seemed to have a bit more play than the rest. In fact subjectively the amount of play in the rest compare well with the hangers on D6575 which has relatively low mileage bogies.So it looks as though there are only two brake hangers at most that need attention and these have been suitably marked.The opportunity was also taken to check the brake cylinders for leakage and apart from one that I think has a very slight hiss (but Will could not hear it so might just be me!) the rest were ok. We have two overhauled spare units on hand if necessary. I also confirmed that one off slack adjuster needs changing as it will not wind back, a common problem and a real nuisance when it comes to changing brake blocks!There is also one of those available on hand.Top few photos from Jon, with bottom three from Ian showing work on D6566.